Life and Death in the Forest – The Survivor Mitzvah Project

Zane Buzby walks in the Lithuanian Forest with Fania Brancovskaja who escaped from the Vilna ghetto during the Holocaust. She was a member of The Avengers, a teenage Partisan unit. This is the last remaining Partisan camp in Lithuania. It is slowly sinking into the ground and will soon be covered by the underbrush and every trace of what happened here will be gone. This is where Partisans fought for their families, for their honor, for their dignity. This is where Fania feels most alive.

Fania then walks with Zane Buzby, guide Liudmila, and the Survivor Mitzvah Project team in the Panerie Forest to Ponar, which Fania describes “a factory of death”, the site of mass killing of over 100,000 men, women and children. This is also the site where most of Fania’s family were killed.